Future Fields

2020 - Present

Future Fields is a performance project cultivating community, courage, and solutions for the climate crisis. Through dancemaking and community engagement, the project will yield new ways for personal and local experiences to be woven into the larger stories of how climate change is impacting our lives, the food we grow and eat, and our shared world. 

About the Project

Future Fields is a multi-year, cross-disciplinary performance and community engagement project that cultivates communal exploration of climate change and agriculture. Led by Dance Exchange Executive Artistic Director Cassie Meador and project Co-Directors Dr. Jamē McCray and Christina Catanese, the project takes place in rural, suburban, and urban communities with partner organizations and farms across the U.S. 

Future Fields offers a pivotal moment for artists, farmers, scientists, and audiences to bring together the strength of our diverse experiences, to invest in dancemaking and storytelling as future-making practices, and to catalyze climate action.

Current and future creative outcomes for Future Fields include: 

  • Live performance developed in partnership with farming communities and with an intergenerational cast of local community and Dance Exchange artists.

  • Animated “Moving Farm Tours,” created and led by an interdisciplinary team of Dance Exchange artists and partnering farms in each region

  • Development of local artistic cohorts to support the development of performances, creative tools, and engagement strategies and actions to extend beyond the performance work

“I love working with Dance Exchange because of their openness towards innovation and willingness to collaborate. We have co-organized several events over the past several years, and each time I am blown away by the creativity and inventiveness the Dance Exchange team brings to the activity, as well as their ability to integrate the content and context that is relevant to my organization. The individuals who participate in these events rave about their experiences, regardless of their backgrounds or areas of expertise. I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity to work with such a thoughtful, dynamic team and look forward to continuing this fruitful partnership with Dance Exchange for years to come.”

— Geoff Hunt, American Society of Microbiology

Connect

Partner with Future Fields or bring the project to your community or organization.

Join Cassie’s Climate Circle to support Dance Exchange’s work at the intersection of artmaking and climate.

Group of about 6 dancers wearing surgical masks cup and hold both hands in front of their face in what appears to be a greenhouse or indoor farming area.

Project Collaborators

Project Co-Directors
Cassie Meador, Executive Artistic Director of Dance Exchange
Dr. Jamē McCray
Christina Catanese

Lead Partners
EcoCity Farms in Maryland
Kellogg Biological Station | Long-Term Ecological Research Center in Michigan 
Sankofa Community Farm

Development and Performing Ensemble
Ronya-Lee Anderson, Performer
Clarence Brooks, Performer
Corina Iona Dalzell, Performer
Ralph Glenmore, Performer
Maggie Waller, Performer
Erin Roberts, Poet 
JaQuanne Leroy, Visual Artist

Additional Development Partners
University of Idaho
Michigan State University
Red Wiggler Community Farms
American Society for Microbiology
Mississippi Center for Cultural Production

Learn More

Dancers scattered about a greenhouse space, one crouching down on their knees and holding another person standing straight up with arms at their sides around the waist. Others watch or crouch down as if to pick something up off the tiled ground.
Group of four dancers bow their heads and hold hands, standing in a diamond formation in and outdoor farm setting with solar panels in the background.
Person standing in wild grass does a side stretch at the far end of a parched field beneath tufts of billowy white clouds.
Person wearing colorful earthtone clothing lunges their body forward over their bent front leg, reaching their arms energetically back with fingers extended up in a greenhouse setting.
Group of people move along the rows of a long greenhouse with hundreds of plants sprouting from beds of soil. One person appears to be explaining something to the others who look on attentively.

This project was supported by…

Seed funding for Future Fields was awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Dance Exchange Inc. is a 2022 NDP Finalist Grant Award recipient. Support was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Mellon Foundation to address continued sustainability needs during COVID-19 and in support of Future Fields.